Thursday, June 13, 2013

Father

He ate the same breakfast every morning: two boiled eggs, two pieces of
toast with marmalade and tea with four teaspoons full of sugar. When he
got older, he added Bran Flakes to “keep things moving”. He packed his
lunch each morning in a metal lunch pail and inside it were almost all of
the same items he had for breakfast. The only change was the bread: it was not toasted. He ate his supper at the same time – 4:30 PM – and
didn't care if anyone joined him. Prefered it, in fact. He also didn’t care
what was on the menu provided that, whatever it was, was served with rice.
This he made himself because nobody did it as well. This is the same
reason he gave for ironing his own shirts. The dry cleaner botched the
job. He used a hanky. He kept it in his left pants pocket and
after blowing, meticulously folded the dry part over the wet before
putting it back in his pocket. He snickered and shrugged his shoulder when
we moaned that this was disgusting yet refused to surrender the
practice. He played golf every day after work in the summer, turned on the
television and watched sports when the snow started to fly. When spring came again, he started it all over again. He was a Habs fan. He thought the 1984
Lakers had the first best first line in the history of basketball. He
thought Lee Trevino was under-rated and didn’t understand why Jack
Nichlaus was “Golf’s Darling”. He screamed so loudly when he saw Joe
Theisman’s leg break that the house shook and the neighbors rush over to
make sure everything was all right. It took two days for him to stop
shaking his head and saying, Now that is disgusting. He called women he
liked, “Darling”, men he liked, “Boss”. He loved to tell us what a
“handsome son-of-a-bitch” he was and the way he said it lets us know
that he still thought he was. He read the Sunday New York Times every
week even though the paper didn’t reach town until Tuesday. He clicked his tongue at the headlines when it arrived and referred to the people in
it by their first names. Pierre and Margaret are breaking up, for
instance. Or, Fidel is having another anti-American rally in Havana. His
legs were muscular and attractive in shorts and I secretly hoped that
mine were the same. He loved to tell anybody who would listen about the
time he got into an elevator in Montreal with Liz Taylor, how her eyes
were violet and she wore a pill box hat. She smiled hello and he was
instantly struck mute. He could recite most of e.e. cummings by heart and
did so when the spirit struck him. He cried when Cher won an Oscar. He's gone but he is everywhere. In my son's quiet gaze. In my daughter's laugh. In the smell of cut grass. In the sound a car makes on gravel. Everywhere. All the time. Here. Now. Always.